2007: The Challenges of Psychology in a Changing World, Sabah

The seventh conference of AASP was held in Kota Kinabalu, Sabah, Malaysia on the 25-28 July 2007. The conference was organized in close cooperation with the Malaysian Psychological Association.

The theme of the conference, which emphasized the global issues and challenges of social psychology in a changing world, provided an opportunity for participants to deepen their understanding about the contributions of Asian Social Psychology, its current status and its possible future directions.

Ward and Leung provided detailed talks about the past, present, and future of Asian social psychology, coming to a consensus that the accomplishments of Asian social psychology are considerable in terms of international visibility, but that theory development and systematic testing of theory identified with Asia is still lacking.

2001: Asian Social Psychology in the 21st century, Melbourne

The 4th Conference of the Asian Association of Social Psychology in Melbourne

The fourth AASP conference was a ground breaking conference for us in ways more than one. First of all, this was our first conference in the century and the millennium as the theme of the conference, Asian social psychology in the 21st century, signified.

It was also the first time in which, following the successes of the Hong Kong, Kyoto, and Taipei conferences, AASP ventured out of the comfort zone of East Asia into the wider world. Symptomatically, we held our first ever conference in conjunction with the annual conference of the Society of Australasian Social Psychologists (SASP), an association of social psychologists in Australia and New Zealand.

1999: Striving for a new era of Asian Social Psychology, Taipei

The 3rd Conference of the Asian Association of Social Psychology in Taipei.

The third conference signalled the beginning of a more professional era for AASP: the keynote speakers were internationally recognized figures from both Asia and the West, the facilities and materials for the conference were sparkling, and the overall size and quality of presentations continued to increase. The AASP meetings have rapidly established themselves as one of the premiere forums for culture-oriented psychology in the world.

1997: Consolidating for the new millennium, Kyoto

The 2nd meeting of the Asian Association of Social Psychology in Kyoto.

The second meeting of the Asian Association of Social Psychology (AASP) took place at the Kyoto International Conference Hall in Japan from August 4-6.

The conference was held as a joint meeting between the AASP and the Japanese Group Dynamics Association (JGDA), and hosted by Kyoto University. It was attended by 104 international scholars from 17 countries as well as 202 Japanese scholars. This represents a considerable increase over the 70 scholars who attended the first AASP meeting two years ago in Hong Kong.

The second meeting of AASP consolidated the promise of the first conference, by increasing attendance, publishing proceedings, launching a journal, and maintaining continuity of leadership while recruiting new officers. It will remain to future conferences to realize the promise of using the organization and conference to promote greater Asian unity.

1995: Asian Social Psychology Awakes, Hong Kong

The Inaugural Conference of the Asian Association of Social Psychology in Hong Kong.

The Inaugural Conference of the Asian Association of Social Psychology (AASP) was held at the Department of Psychology, Chung-Chi College, Chinese University of Hong Kong, from 21 to 23 June. This conference, among the first of its kind, brought together more than 70 scholars from 8 countries for the purpose of establishing an Asian perspective on psychology.

Several themes consistently emerged from the 37 oral presentations and 22 posters at the conference. Foremost among these is the importance of collectivism in East Asian societies, whether they are Chinese, Japanese, or Korean. Much research in psychology compares “collectivist cultures” like those in Asia versus “individualistic cultures” like the United States.

The popular response to the first conference, put together on very short notice, appears to indicate that the ground is ripe for a third, more culturally grounded wing of social psychology to emerge. That wing is in Asia, and the time is now for it to take flight.